Recent advances in notebook and laptop computers have led to the development of the "Personal Computer Memory Card International Association" (hereinafter PCMCIA) bus standard. The PCMCIA bus can be used not only to connect memory cards to notebook or laptop computers, but also to connect a wide variety of peripheral devices, including modems and other special feature cards to such computer. PCMCIA cards are the approximate size of a typical credit card, and laptop, notebook and other types of portable personal computers have slots for removably receiving PCMCIA cards which are architected to function with the PCMCIA bus of the laptop computers. Thus, the PCMCIA feature cards can be inserted into laptop computers and can be removed for use in other similar computers and to allow other cards to be inserted.
However, one of the problems encountered with the PCMCIA bus architecture and the associate PCMCIA card configuration is that the PCMCIA cards are not compatible either from a bus architecture standpoint or from a physical standpoint with conventional desktop computers which have a variety of different bus architectures such as Micro Channel.RTM., ISA, PCI, etc., as well as slots that are configured to receive different sizes and differently configured add-on or daughter cards. Hence, the PCMCIA card is useful only in laptop or notebook computers configured to receive them, and thus cannot be directly used in conventional desktop computers with other bus architectures and physical configurations. Therefore, when a person wishes to transfer the information in the PCMCIA card which was maintained in a laptop computer and which can contain a work product, it is necessary to electronically transfer the data from the PCMCIA card to some type of add-on card or disc or other media which can be utilized in a desktop computer. Moreover, each time the data is transferred from the PCMCIA card to a card for use in another system, it must be supplied through the card, hard disk or other medium in a form that will allow it to be used by bus architecture of the receiving system.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a technique that would allow PCMCIA cards to be utilized not only in laptop and notebook computers having PCMCIA architecture, but also allow the same PCMCIA card be attached directly to a desktop or other computer having different bus architecture from that of the laptop or notebook computer. Moreover, it would be desirable to connect a plurality of such PCMCIA cards into a single card slot on a desktop computer.
To this end, it has been proposed that a conventional card for insertion into a desktop computer be provided with an PCMCIA card adaptor thereon, with required logic on the card to adapt the PCMCIA card to operate on the specific bus architecture of the desktop computer, whether it is ISA, Micro Channel.RTM., PCI, etc. This has found a certain amount of acceptance. However, the number of PCMCIA cards that can actually be physically located on a ISA or similar card in a desktop computer is somewhat limited. Hence, it has been suggested that an outrigger card be provided which can receive several PCMCIA cards therein, with the outrigger card being attached to a bay in the front of the computer with cabling attaching the outrigger card to the ISA or other type bus card inserted into the card slot of the desktop computer. While this does provide additional feature card capability in that PCMCIA cards can be utilized and inserted and removed through bay doors, nevertheless because of the cabling and the inherent impedance in the cabling and other factors which can significantly interfere with reception of the signals on the outrigger card, it has been prior art practice to provide active devices, such as transistors, etc., on the outrigger card so as to process the signals received by the lines and thereby eliminate poor signal quality. While this does solve the problem of poor quality of certain of the signals, nevertheless it adds significantly to the expense of the outrigger card inasmuch as active components must be supplied which are expensive to manufacture and assemble with respect to the outrigger card, thereby adding significantly to the cost of the outrigger card merely to control the quality of the signals received thereon and used by the PCMCIA card.